87. Crypts and plans

When he regained consciousness, it took him an interminable time to simply try to remember who he was and where he was. He felt terrible. After surviving one of the supposedly most lethal venoms, was he going to die because of a damned arrow in his arm? Unless this fire that was eating him up now was a side effect of the venom that should have killed him anyway. Either way, Tsu was a great doctor, and Dashvara trusted him to do everything he could to keep the steppe lord from ending up in the grave.

Time passed and his mind was still drowned and lost as if he had plunged into a sea of boiling water. He knew that he was still in the tower, that he had been put on a rather comfortable straw mattress and that he was suffocating in the heat, despite the cold it must have been outside.

He was vaguely aware of what was going on around him, but when he tried to remember, reality escaped him, his headache worsened, and he soon forgot everything around him. When he finally woke up with a clearer head and lay disoriented on his pallet, it was daylight, but he could not tell which day it was. The whole winter could have passed, and he would not have noticed.

As soon as he straightened up, Boron, sitting barely a step away like a silent watchman, looked up and smiled at him. The Placid’s questioning expression spoke louder than his tongue. Dashvara answered with a tired, smiling pout.

“I think I’m beginning to live again,” he assured.

In fact, his mind was no longer so confused, and his body was no longer burning with fever. He was just tired. He glanced down at his bandaged arm before glancing around the tower room. It was deserted, but the door, ajar, let in the quiet murmur of conversation. He recognized Makarva’s light voice, as well as Orafe’s deeper stentorian voice. After rubbing his eyes, he asked:

“How long have I been here?”

“Three days,” Boron answered. “The fever broke last night, and you’ve been asleep half a day. You burned like a campfire, but Tsu says that now you are out of danger. A little water?”

Dashvara agreed, then lay back down, feeling dizzy.

“Did the assassin spill the beans?” he asked after a moment.

Boron winced and hesitated.

“Apparently, she couldn’t say anything. An Essimean in the palace explained to us that her tongue was cut out a few years ago for rebellion.” Dashvara wrinkled his nose, and the Placid added with obvious embarrassment, “That night… some Xalyas lost their temper. They tried to get into the building where the Essimeans were keeping the murderess prisoner… Nothing serious happened,” he assured at once under Dashvara’s alarmed eyes. “Anyway, at dawn, the Essimeans themselves executed her.” He paused and uncomfortably corrected, “Let’s just say that nothing very serious happened, largely because of the Titiaka who interfered.”

Dashvara arched an eyebrow.

“He interfered?” he repeated, dumbfounded. “Kuriag?”

He paled at the thought of the young elf blocking the way of a bunch of angry Xalyas.

“He used a strange spell,” Boron nodded. “I was behind and didn’t feel anything, but Miflin says it had to do with the marks on our arms. He says they stood there for a while as if paralyzed. In the end, they surrounded us, and we had to put down our weapons.” He shrugged. “I guess the Titiaka prevented a tragedy from happening. But more than a few are angry with him after what he did.” He shook his head. “Anyway, he’s not a bad guy. He even came here to help Tsu fix you up when he found out you were still alive.” He sighed, “If only we could get out of this town…”

He fell silent, as if exhausted from talking so much in one go. Dashvara remained meditative, both relieved that nothing disastrous had happened during his delirium and exasperated by the fatigue that prevented him from concentrating on anything too complicated.

“What about the crypt?” he asked at last.

Boron’s eyes sparkled.

“We opened it.” Under Dashvara’s eager eyes, he lowered his voice and said with unusual excitement, “It’s full of weapons, Dash. The captain said we weren’t to touch it for now… But I got to see them. They’re old, but they’re in good condition. All of them belonged to the Old Kings.”

Dashvara smiled, but his smile gradually faded. Well, okay, they had weapons. But his brothers already had them. And arming Aralika’s young Xalya slaves to make their way through the Essimean soldiers would have been a death sentence. Definitely, they needed a well-thought-out plan to get out of this situation. Unless Kuriag renegotiated with Todakwa. In which case… demons, in which case, he was ready to hand the swords over to the Legitimate and make him lord of the Xalyas. And more. As if guessing his thoughts, Boron added in a low voice:

“There’s more good news. In this crypt, there is a tunnel that opens with the same magical key. It was Tah who found it.”

“A tunnel?” Dashvara repeated, gripped.

“Yep. It’s a bit of a narrow tunnel, but we can get through. According to Tah, it leads into an Essimean house on the outskirts of Aralika. The captain says it might become useful to us.”

And pretty damn useful, Dashvara thought cheerfully. Well, it would have been better if the tunnel had opened up even further, but… anyway, it could give them the advantage of surprise. Boron smiled and stood up.

“Tsu asked me to let him know when you wake up. I’ll be right back.”

Dashvara nodded, and from his pallet, he saw the Placid walk silently away towards the exit. He closed his eyes, opened them again, tried to fight off the fatigue… and failed. Almost without realizing it, he fell into a deep, restful sleep. He had one of those pleasant dreams he used to have regularly: he was sitting on the sparse grass of Xalya, accompanied by Lusombra and Sunrise, and with a heart full of peace, he was talking to his horses gently, under the immense steppe sky…

He awoke to a growing commotion outside. A single lantern on the statue of the Eternal Bird gently lit the interior of the tower. It was dark. The door was ajar, and he caught a glimpse of Lumon’s silhouette just in time as he stepped out, perhaps to find out what all the fuss was about. And, indeed, what could be the reason?

Frowning, puzzled, Dashvara tried to straighten up, but then, without meaning to, he moved his right arm, and a sharp pain left him paralyzed for a few seconds. Oh, hell… Maybe the Captain was right when he said he’d been through worse things, but… hell, it still hurt. He huffed, catching his breath. With some effort he managed to sit up, grabbed a jug of milk with his left hand, and took long sips before turning his attention to the plate full of strange vegetables that had been left out. Was it typical Essimean food? In any case, he found it tasted like the devil. He was chewing, hesitating whether to spit or not, when, noticing that the commotion was increasing, he left his meal aside with relief in order to satisfy his curiosity… However, as soon as he started to get up, a bald head appeared through the door. It was Miflin. The Poet’s eyes widened when he saw him sitting on his pallet, and he smiled broadly before exclaiming:

“Dash! You’re awake!” He walked in as he joyfully called out, “Guess what happened.”

Dashvara looked at him, intrigued. He ventured mockingly:

“A red nadre has swallowed Todakwa.”

Miflin laughed.

“If only that could be true. No. Apparently, the villages of Nanda and Lifdor have risen up. I bet my hair that Zefrek is behind it.”

Dashvara blinked, stunned. The Shalussis had “risen up”?

“Liadirlá, seriously?”

Miflin smiled with all his teeth, but it was Makarva who answered, storming in.

“So seriously that the Essimean are on the warpath!” He smiled. “How is the King of the Eternal Bird doing?”

Dashvara shrugged.

“Alive and more or less clearheaded at last. What exactly happened?”

Miflin explained all at once:

“Tsu and the Titiaka have taken care of you, you have risen again, and now Todakwa dares not lay a hand on you, because everyone think that Skâra has blessed you. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Dashvara had expected an explanation about the Shalussis, but the Poet’s answer made him pout in amazement. Skâra had blessed him? Had She? Makarva reasoned:

“I’d say it was rather the Eternal Bird in this tower that protected you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Miflin scoffed. “The Eternal Bird doesn’t work miracles, Mak.”

“No,” this one conceded, “but it is said that only the Ancient Kings were able to survive the red snake venom. And Dashvara did. It’s as if the Eternal Bird of the Tower adopted him. I’m not the only one who says so.”

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Miflin gave Dashvara a mocking look.

“Mak thinks you’re divine, Dash.”

Makarva gave him a brotherly slap as he protested:

“So what if I thinks he is?”

“Divine or not,” Dashvara interjected, amused, “I don’t think Todakwa is very fond of this situation. On one side Zefrek, on the other the Xalyas…”

And perhaps Raxifar of Akinoa, he added mentally. Miflin approved with triumphant joy:

“He must be red with anger!”

Dashvara nodded with a crooked smile.

“This is all beginning to take a good turn,” he admitted. “But don’t be fooled, brothers. The Essimeans have already shown us their treachery. And we are still trapped in their kingdom.”

Makarva and Miflin nodded, and the former assured:

“Don’t worry: we sleep like cats. Besides, now that you’ve been blessed by Skâra, they won’t dare touch us.”

Dashvara looked skeptical, Miflin elbowed Makarva, and he was opening his mouth to throw some jibe when Tsu appeared through the door. For a moment, the drow showed a hint of exasperation, as if he was displeased that the two young Xalyas were talking with his patient, but then he resumed an inexpressive and quiet face and approached saying:

“I’ll change your bandage. I see you haven’t eaten it all yet,” he observed with a frown. “You should finish. These are ogroyes that come straight from Titiaka. They’re delicious.”

“Ogroyes,” Dashvara repeated in a hushed whisper. Since when did people eat ogroyes on the steppe? “Does it have anything to do with ogres? No, because they taste of the devil… A-a-yea,” he breathed in sharply, glowering at his arm.

“Try not to move your arm, will you?” the drow growled in a dry tone. “It needs absolute rest for at least two weeks. I’m not kidding. Wait, I’ll bring some boiling water. An infusion will do you good.”

“I’ll bring it,” Miflin interjected.

Dashvara sighed softly. Two weeks. Clearly, he was going to have the doctor behind him longer than the last time he’d been resuscitated. He caught Makarva’s mocking smile and rolled his eyes. No choice, then…

“Ayshat, Tsu,” he pronounced.

The drow, already leaning close to him, looked at him with his reddish eyes, arched an eyebrow, shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that there was no need to say thank you, and he was about to remove the bandage. Dashvara smiled inwardly. Skâra, what the hell, he thought. If She must bless someone, then rather than him, She should bless the drow.

* * *

For the next three days, Dashvara did not leave the tower under Tsu’s express orders… and the Captain’s. Had Zorvun guessed that Kuriag might not be the target of this assassination? Who knows. In any case, as long as Dashvara was in the tower, “protected” by the Eternal Bird and Skâra, the Xalyas had a sacred reason to keep the Essimeans from entering and, therefore, to keep the crypt’s weapons within their reach.

So Dashvara played the obedient patient and spent long hours on top of the tower, looking out over the steppe. He looked northeast, not toward Xalya, but toward the land of the Honyrs. Towards his naâsga. At times, he almost thought he saw her black eyes magically drawn before him. But most of the time, what he saw were the houses of Aralika, the vegetable gardens and the bands of horses and flocks of sheep, perhaps guarded by some Xalya child. The Fadul River, lined with shrubs and stones, meandered with its clear, sparkling waters from the northeast. And beyond the river, halfway between Essimea and Xalya, lay an ocean of rosy and white shrubs. The Xalyas called it the Death Meadow, because, four decades ago, they had won a bloody battle there against the Akinoas. Well… won, that was a way of speaking, because they had lost more men there than in all the following decades. Yes, they had managed to save the Dungeon of Nayul from the savage clutches… only to have it fall five years later in another battle that had ended in defeat for the sons of the Eternal Bird. It was said that, since then, on the meadow, the pink bushes bled brother blood, and the white ones cried out for vengeance…

So many senseless deaths.

Silently, Dashvara leaned back in his chair and looked up at a completely blue sky.

“So many senseless deaths,” he repeated softly. And what for, in the end? So that the Essimeans would end up dominating the steppe with the support of a foreign federation that lived miles away. Was there a more absurd reality?

The sound of footsteps on the stairs interrupted his thoughts. He looked down, heard panting, and soon saw the captain’s face, flushed with effort. No sooner had he arrived than he breathed out:

“Devils, Dash… One of these days you’ll end up killing me.” He exhaled, catching his breath under Dashvara’s amused look, and announced: “I bring news.”

Dashvara stood up, indicating the chair with his left hand:

“Age before beauty, Captain.”

The latter rolled his eyes and, ignoring the invitation, said:

“The Shalussis have taken control of their former villages, and the Essimeans will send about two-hundred warriors to claim them back. That would leave that many Essimeans ready to defend Aralika. It’s a good opportunity to leave this city all together,” he asserted. “If we manage to get far enough away, they won’t dare follow us.”

Dashvara nodded, excited by the prospect.

“When are those two hundred going to leave?”

“Tomorrow,” the captain replied. “They probably won’t get to Lamasta until the next day… We can leave during that night and go along the river. If they turn back to stop us… we’d be in trouble,” he admitted. “But it wouldn’t make sense to turn back and give the Shalussis more time to organize. This is not a harmless uprising,” he assured. “Zefrek knows what he is doing. I don’t know how he managed it, but apparently he’s armed his people to the teeth. According to Garag, the Dazbonians must have sold them weapons cheaply. That Federate kept spewing venom against the Republicans throughout the meal. He even says he’ll send some Ryscodran mercenaries he has in Ergaika to help the Essimeans crush the rebellion…” He shook his head with a grimace of disgust. “I don’t like that diplomat at all.”

“Do the Xalyas know yet?” Dashvara asked.

“Not the details. I’ll fill them in. But I remind you that you are still the lord, son. You’re the one who has to give the orders.”

Dashvara arched a mocking eyebrow.

“Aye, sir. I like your plan. Though I still think the corpse idea wasn’t so bad.” He smiled broadly and, regaining his seriousness, asked, “What do we do with the weapons from the crypt?”

The captain pouted.

“I suggest we take them out through the tunnel and hide them in our saddlebags. I don’t think it’s a good idea to give them to these boys so soon. Some of them I’ve instructed a little in Xalya, and they know the basics… but those under fourteen, I wouldn’t let them have a sword in their hands unless it was absolutely necessary.”

“Without a doubt,” Dashvara approved.

He scratched his neck nervously, all too aware that this escape could end in a bloodbath. If they all used the tunnel to get through, they could get to the outskirts of the city without anyone seeing them. The disadvantage was that it would take them at least an hour to get through, if not more, and they would run the risk of being caught by the Essimean in one place and killed like dogs. Or of being surprised by the dawn too early.

He shook his head.

“What about your son-in-law?” he asked.

“Bah,” the captain sighed. He dropped into the chair, saying, “The boy is not stupid, but he is more lost than a puppy. It’s a good thing he decided to travel to the steppe before returning to Titiaka, or else those citizens would have been all over him from the start.”

Dashvara huffed, meditative. He hadn’t told the Legitimate about the crypt yet. He had been able to visit it the day before, borrowing the golden key again under the pretext that he was “looking for the entrance to Nabakaji’s crypt”. Kuriag and Asmoan, according to Tah, did not suspect that he had already found it a week ago. And, so far, it had been for the best. However… hadn’t he promised Kuriag Dikaksunora that he would inform him of all his decisions whenever possible?

Well, go ahead and tell him, Dash, he scoffed. Tell him you intend to go with your people through a tunnel concealed under the Feather. He won’t know to do, he’ll be anxious, and in any case, the Essimeans will think him a complete fool for losing his newly acquired two-hundred Xalyas so quickly.

In fact, as far as he knew, Kuriag had finally succeeded in obtaining the Xalyas from Essimea in exchange for a promise to deny them the right to settle on the steppe as a free people. The condition was revolting, but Dashvara understood that it was the best the young elf could come up with to at least remove his people from Todakwa’s power. And he hoped that, in Kuriag’s presence, the Essimeans would think twice before rushing to attack his new slaves.

Anyway, you promised him, Dash. You promised to inform him.

And, after all he had done, he deserved a thousand times to be informed. His Eternal Bird urged Dashvara to talk to Kuriag Dikaksunora. He had to tell him about the crypt and show it to him… maybe once they had hidden the weapons? Then there wouldn’t be much left for him to see. Aside from the messy piles of swords, spears, and shields, and aside from the hidden tunnel, the crypt seemed all too ordinary: it was a simple rectangular room with a stone coffin in the middle. No one had dared touch the lid, not even Dashvara, even though he had burned an entire candle examining the writings engraved on it in ancient Oy’vat. Most of them were maxims that Maloven had repeated to him over and over during his childhood, but not all of them. One sentence had particularly stuck with him; it said:

“Death to the man who drags his brothers to certain death.”

These words had robbed him of many hours of sleep, and still continued to torment him. Every time he recalled them, he couldn’t help but think of his lord father and remember how he had sent his people to their deaths. But at the same time, he scoffed at himself, because, on the day Xalya had fallen, had he not convinced himself that Vifkan of Xalya had done the right thing, that he had followed his Eternal Bird in fighting to the death, and that he had instead condemned his son to a shameful life by forcing him to flee?

How far away those times were now, and yet he kept such a vivid image of them in his mind… After a silence, he noticed the Captain’s curious look and shook his head with a snort.

“Philosopher’s worries,” he explained.

He turned and leaned on the edge of the tower, this time looking southeastward to the Shalussi lands. He seemed to see columns of smoke rising in the distance behind the hills. Houses on fire? Probably. He hesitated before deciding to ask:

“Do you think our Dahars is still the same as it was, Captain?”

He waited with impatience and apprehension for Zorvun’s answer. He heard him rise from the chair, approach, and lean against the battlements. The captain gazed along with him at the columns of smoke before finally replying:

“In Titiaka, if you remember, you repeated some words Maloven told you. ‘It’s not the feathers that are important, but the strength that sustains them.’” Dashvara faintly smiled, remembering, and the captain concluded, “Perhaps the feathers have changed a bit… Certainly, everyone’s feather has changed, and that is natural. But the strength has not changed, Dashvara. It is still the same.”

Dashvara believed him and nodded, relieved. Zorvun added in a lighter voice:

“You should come downstairs. A real meal will do you good, and not all that weird food Tsu gives you. You’ve got your head in the clouds, so much that you’re thinking like a shaard. And it’s not practical to have to climb all those stairs to visit the Immortal King.”

Dashvara rolled his eyes and stepped away from the niche with a sigh:

“You are right. My head is my undoing. If I could change it, I’d change it for Maef’s. His thoughts, at least, are always clear.”

“Too much clear, I’d say,” the captain snorted, amused.

As they headed for the stairs, Dashvara said:

“I’ll talk to Kuriag. We need to let him know we’re leaving.”

The captain grimaced, hesitated, and finally admitted:

“I think he already suspects something.” At Dashvara’s surprised look, he explained briefly, “My daughter. She reads my mind like an open book.”

Dashvara smiled.

“All the more reason to go talk to him then. We don’t want our master to get upset. Maybe he’ll even want to come with us,” he added, very amused.

The captain nodded, a thoughtful twinkle in his eye.

“If only that could be true! I would treat him like a son.”

And so, with a half-felt calm, one perhaps thinking of his daughter’s future, the other of his people’s, the two Xalyas began their descent from the Tower of the Ancient Kings.